Event

10 Lessons Learned from our NYC event “Innovation Drivers”

By

Jessie Stettin

Sitting
on the 48th Floor of the beautiful 10 Hudson Yards with sweeping
views of downtown NYC and sunset over the Hudson, we brought together 65
industry leading professionals to explore innovation drivers as part of New
York Design Week with our after work event “Innovation Drivers – An idea
requires momentum in order to move”.

Throughout
the evening, we heard origin stories of purpose, witnessed incredible career
perseverance and explored the ‘adjacent possible’. Below is a quick snapshot of
just some lessons learned from our incredible speakers; Karel Golta, Domhnaill
Hernon and Kevin Bethune.

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1.
Start with the Basics (KG)

Through starting with the basics and
asking the right questions, Indeed not only increased the safety of industrial
gas valves for Linde, but also uncovered an opportunity for Linde to design
smart, trackable canisters and develop a new service business (see more here).

2.
Don’t Fail (KG)

Though
conventional startup wisdom is “fail often and quickly”, Karel views failure as
the point you stop trying. Through working with momentum, German home
entertainment startup Vion transformed into Seon, a safety solution for Cape
Town Residents (case here). Most
importantly, don’t stop trying!

3.
Think in Ecosystems (KG)

Hoyer’s
Monsieur cuisine is the perfect example of how a company set out on a mission
to make home-cooking easier for all at a relatively low cost while creating a
dynamic ecosystem between professional chefs, aspiring home-chefs and friends (details
here).

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4.
Innovation must be both
inventive (new and distinct) and impactful (world-changing) (DH)

At
the E.AT. Lab, they are innovative in the truest sense. With the challenge of
breaking down barriers between people based on race, culture, religion and
politics, they work with artists across multiple mediums to develop true
empathy; clearly inventive and impactful work.

5.
Work toward the adjacent
possible (DH)

One
of the chief benefits of true diversity is the adjacent possible; namely
through bringing together radically different people with different skills and
life experiences, we expand possibilities. Their collaboration of Artists and
Technologist is just one example of how we ought to bring diverse thought
together to create true innovation.

6.
Digitization has made us
lonely and poor communicators (DH)

Though
we are the most “connected “generation, much of the recent advances in
technology have done more to isolate us than connect us. Reducing our emotional
expression to emojis has created more barriers than it has removed and we need
a better tool to connect.

‍

7.
Work Hard, Sometimes 2x
as Hard as Others (KB)

Originally
trained as an Engineer, when Kevin wanted to explore his designer side, he
essentially worked two full-time jobs at Nike until he was able to prove
inventive as a designer

8.
Design isn’t always (and
often isn’t) linear (KB)

While
customers who see the end product may assume that the process was clear and
linear, the design teams know that it is far from it. It’s a highly iterative
process with many twists and turns along the way.

9.
Design unlocks solutions
to our deepest problems (KB)

The superpower of designers is
to use empathy to discover what customers need, even when the customers can’t
articulate their deep needs

Hosting an event like this
reminded me of the dire need for collaboration. While Steven Pinker argues that
the world had never been a better place (and he may be right), we have many
global and local problems we need to solve quickly. More than ever, we need to
work in collaboration not in competition.

A special thank you to the German American
Chamber of Commerce for co-hosting this event with us, SAP for lending us their
beautiful venue, our incredible speakers for sharing their insights and all of
our guests for their participation. We look forward to seeing you at the next
Indeed event – stay tuned!

Jessie Stettin

Director of Strategy

Jessie occasionally supported our New York subsidiary. He is a behavioural economist, humanist and futurist whose passion lies in preserving the beauty and enhancing the depth of humanity in an age in which technology, efficiency and data increasingly overshadow that.